


The One Time Adam Jensen Hated His Sentinel RX Health System, and the Five Times He Didn't

by raphae11e



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: ??? I probably should call it that honestly, Blood, Drinking, Electrocution, Gen, Guro, Major Character Injury, More tags to be added, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-12 21:57:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7950688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raphae11e/pseuds/raphae11e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Jensen wakes up to discover he's been augmented, he is beyond angry. Everything is different now, and more often than not he finds himself wishing he had his old body back. That is, until he realizes just how much his augments do to keep him alive.</p><p>Sort of a twist on the traditional 5+1 fic, just with its order reversed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Liver

**Author's Note:**

> So this is, in all honesty, purely a Jensen whump fic, because I'm nasty like that. There's a portion of angst and a whole lot of violence. Jensen suffers quite a bit, and if (as the tag says) graphic depictions of violence upset you, I won't fault you for that. Just a quick warning before we get started!

When Jensen wakes up for the first time since the accident and sees the word LIMB emblazoned on the hospital room’s wall, he panics. Though his head is stuffed with cotton he can still feel the IVs piercing his skin, the oxygen mask over his mouth, and when he tries to pull it off he stops with his hand midway to his face.

His fingers whirr as they close themselves into a fist. They _whirr._ It’s an augmented hand, sleek and jet black and distinctly inhuman. Before he knows what’s happening his artificial joints are clenching, reacting to his anger, his shock, his sense of _betrayal._ He can feel it seeping deep into his chest and there’s a creaking sound next to him as his other hand grabs hold of the table he’s lying on and squeezes. The metal gives easily under his new fingers and somehow that only makes the situation worse. There’s an angry beeping sound he can hear in the distance, as if it’s coming from the end of a long, narrow tunnel; the longer he stays awake the louder it gets and soon it’s accompanied by a high, tinny noise. He arches his back in an attempt to get up, to get away, but realizes just how weak he is and that only makes him more afraid.

Suddenly he hears a door slamming and a flood of noise enters his tiny, claustrophobic room. Hands press firmly against his legs, his torso, his arms, and before he can stop himself he’s thrashing. The high, tinny noise grows louder and he realizes it’s the sound of him screaming through his oxygen mask, his voice hoarse and raw with disuse. Someone near him grunts as he lashes out and hits flesh; two of the hands fall away but are immediately replaced by four more.

“Please,” he tries to say. “Please.” It comes out strangled, almost indistinguishable from the other panicked sounds he’s making.

His prayer is answered, in a way. Near his head someone is tapping frantically at his life support system and then everything begins to grow dim. The more breaths he takes, the deeper he sinks into the fog, and then everything is dark.

\---

Jensen is discharged from the clinic several months later. Though he’s told that all of his new _parts_ are in order, his head still feels like it’s in that damned fog. The day he finally leaves the facility with all of its sterile floors and white corridors, dressed in a tee shirt and sweatpants, feels like only the beginning of the nightmare. As it turns out, that’s exactly what it is. When he gets to his new apartment it feels cold and unwelcome. Half of his belongings are still in boxes, but he can’t bring himself to even attempt going through them.

He just wants to sleep, and sleep, and sleep. Sometimes he doesn’t want to wake up, but he’d never admit that to anyone. Especially when so many of Sarif’s employees look at him with such _pity_.

“Adjusting will take time,” they told him. They being the LIMB clinic doctors, and Adam can’t help but snort in derision when he thinks about how half of them aren’t even augmented, and the ones who are only have the most basic enhancements. He wants to ask them if they’d like to be killed and then resurrected with a body so alien it doesn’t even feel like his own. He wants to ask how long they’d take to fucking _adjust_.

One night as he’s getting ready for bed, he makes the mistake of looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. He’s pointedly avoided doing so ever since he returned home, knowing that he won’t like what he sees. This time, some morbid kind of curiosity coaxes him into looking.

When he sees the newly healed surgical scars crisscrossing his chest, the barely healed lacerations from his “accident,” the ports and bolts and the black of his arms, clinging to him like a parasite, he sees red. Before he can even register what’s happening he’s flying forward, his fist hitting the glass, splintering it into millions of tiny shards. Jensen is dimly aware that if his hand were still flesh and blood, he would have broken it. Something about that is oddly satisfying.

\---

He tries as hard as he can to avoid self destructive tendencies; even before the surgery he had been a fairly heavy smoker. Now he feels himself tempted to add vodka to the mix. And whiskey. And really anything else he can get his hands on.

The first drag of his cigarette feels like the first good thing that’s happened to him in a long while. _What a depressing thought._ He holds it gently between his fingers, delicately, knowing how ridiculously strong his augments have made him. After taking a second breath, and then a third, the euphoria starts to ebb. By the fourth drag it’s completely gone, and it takes him a few seconds to figure out why.

In the top corner of his retinal hub, nearly hidden from sight, is a tiny message. “Warning: toxins being filtered from system.” _Filtered?_ Jensen freezes with his cigarette halfway to his mouth. Hurriedly stamping it out in his ashtray, he reaches for a bottle of whiskey he hadn’t bothered to try yet. He hasn’t tried _any_ alcohol yet. Still holding everything as carefully as possible, he wrenches the seal off the bottle and downs as much as he can.

 _Bad idea_ , he thinks, sputtering and coughing at the burning sensation in his throat, but he’s still strangely pleased with himself. That’s how it should feel, swallowing a mouthful of hard liquor.

But then that message appears on his hud again. “Warning: toxins being filtered from system.” Almost instantly the burning in his throat dies down and he feels, well, normal. His one method of escape, albeit an unhealthy one, has been taken from him.

The bottle of whiskey shatters in his tightening grip. He can’t even bring himself to care.


	2. The Skin

Jensen’s first mission is immediately assigned upon his return to Sarif Industries. There’s a hostage situation, it seems, and in an attempt to cover up the whole issue he’s being sent in to solve the problem. He’s hardly surprised. After all, Sarif’s goal is to first and foremost protect his own reputation, isn’t it?

He barely talks to his boss on the ride over. He knows it unsettles him, and the increasingly bitter part of him thinks, _G_ _ood. Let him be uncomfortable_. After receiving his debriefing and his weapons, Adam jumps down onto the helipad without a backward glance, feeling a bit of satisfaction when Sarif offers a lame goodbye before closing the chopper door.

Now he can work in peace.

He manages to find and secure the hostages without raising a single alarm, something he’s quite proud of. Soon after that, however, everything starts to go to hell; he’s spotted by a Purity First member and is immediately met with deadly force. Ducking behind an office desk, he waits for a pause in the gunfire to make a run to the room’s exit.

That moment comes and he takes off, his augments whirring as he vaults over a desk and makes a beeline for the door. Bullets start flying again as one of the soldiers spots him and he feels a flash of pain as one grazes his face, splitting his cheek open. Regardless, he makes it out of the room remarkably unscathed, ducking into a nearby office as his pursuers run right past, searching for him. He presses two fingers to the cut on his face and hisses as they come away red with blood. Though his breathing is even he can still feel adrenaline pulsing through his veins (what’s left of them, at least).

He feels _good_. It completely catches him off guard.

Just under an hour later, he’s walking out onto the helipad as Malik touches down in the VTOL. As the pilot climbs out of the plane she makes a surprised noise.

“Looks like you got into a bit of a scrap, huh?” she asks, gesturing to his face. Jensen pauses, realizing what she’s referring to. He’d forgotten all about the handful of cuts he’d sustained from close calls with armed Purity First members.

“Guess so,” he says. He presses his fingers to a second cut along his jaw- and stops. The wound no longer feels wet, and when he feels along the mark he can tell it’s already starting to close itself up. “What the hell?”

Malik seems to understand what he’s referring to. “It’s your Sentinel RX Health System.” She taps her chest, indicating where the augment is placed: right next to the heart. “Those were just minor injuries, so they’re almost healed already. Pretty handy.”

When Adam pulls his hand away from his face, the only blood still on his fingers is dried. _From when I first got that cut._

“Yeah,” he replies distractedly. “Handy.”

\---

During his next mission Jensen finds himself sneaking through an abandoned factory complex teeming with augmented soldiers. From what he can tell they belong to the same group that attacked Sarif Industries. As soon as he arrives he finds himself hoping that somewhere, deep in this facility, he’ll find the man who tried to kill him. Who killed Megan. The very thought makes his blood boil, and he tries to push it aside to keep a clear head.

The complex is almost labyrinthine in nature, so he finds himself having to double back on several occasions, backtracking through areas full of armed augs. He’s hiding in a storage closet, waiting for an alarm he triggered to die down, checking the map on his hud for the eighth time in what feels like minutes, when he hears footsteps approaching. Before he has time to react, the door of the closet swings open to reveal a guard (just one, thank _God_ ).

“Wh-?” the man starts, but Adam is already on him. He grabs the guard’s collar and yanks him forward, and as he goes to put him in a choke hold there’s a sudden _shhk_ noise of a blade unsheathing and a blinding _pain._

He looks back on the situation later with something like amazement, because despite that pain Adam still finds the strength to wrap an arm around his attacker’s throat and force him into unconsciousness. Then he lets go and the man slumps. The blade now lodged in Jensen’s shoulder slips out with a wet, bloody noise. It’s just like one of the blades Adam has in his own arms, and he mentally kicks himself for not realizing that other augs may have that enhancement too.

His vision blurs as the pain flares and he reaches up, his teeth clenched, to press a palm to the thin wound he can feel under his tactical vest. The blade must’ve been made of an exceptionally tough metal, to have pierced all the way through his armor. He can tell it sliced through the meat of his shoulder, too, where the muscles necessary to operate his augmented arms are located. _Great. This mission’s already gone on long enough, and now this._

Even though it hurts like fucking _hell_ , Jensen checks his hud map just once more and then, gathering his wits about him, moves out of the closet and slowly down the hallway. He feels the persistent ache of the wound as he makes his way through the rest of the facility. He feels it when Lawrence Barrett, one of the augs from the attack on Sarif Industries, grips the collar of his tactical vest and presses him _hard_ against the concrete wall. The persistent ache grows into another almost unbearable flare of pain, and just when he feels like his bones may give way before Barrett lets up, Adam manages to aim a well placed kick at the man’s gut, forcing him to let go.

When Barrett grinds out his final words, something about an address in Hengsha, before opening his vest to reveal a full pack of frag grenades, Jensen barely manages to get away in time. The blast combined with his own strength propels him several feet away and, of course, because life is not kind to him, he lands on his injured shoulder. He growls in pain, taking a moment to lie there and collect himself, shaking, his forehead pressed against the ground.

“Jesus Christ, Adam, are you alright?! What happened?”

“M’fine, Malik,” he manages. Forcing himself back onto his feet, he makes an about face and heads for the hangar doors. “Ready for pickup. Just… just come get me. Follow my coordinates.”

On the plane ride back Malik gives him some (much appreciated) advice on how to deal with his injuries. She seems surprised but pleased that Adam is even willing to open up to her. To tell the truth, Adam is just as surprised, himself. They make it back to Sarif Industries in one piece, and he’s able to get through Sarif’s debriefing without so much as pulling a pained face.

He doesn’t go into detail about his injuries with David. Maybe that seems petulant, but it makes him feel like he’s in control of at least _part_ of his life.

When he finally returns to his apartment that night, Jensen is practically dead on his feet. He tugs off his vest, makes a mental note to get it fixed up before his next mission. His body his heavy and sluggish; his augments seem like they’re moving in slow motion because of his fatigue. The ache of his shoulder remains, as always, persistent.

But when he looks in the mirror that night before bed, all that’s visibly left of the wound is a thin, pink scar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments are appreciated!


	3. The Ribcage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Am I kind of bending the rules as to how much damage Adam's health system will repair? Probably. Will things be bent even further by the time this fic ends? Most definitely.

_And I thought Detroit was shady_ , Jensen muses as he steps quietly out of a side alley and back into the streets of Hengsha. He hasn’t even been here a full day, and yet he’s already made several (probably unwise) deals with the Triads. He’s already seen the Harvesters, too. They keep their distance, mostly, but he can practically feel their hungry eyes on him when he strides past. Or rather, on his expensive, military grade augments. The thought gives him chills.

He’s already encountered Belltower troops intent on compromising his mission, a group of them swarming around the Alice Garden Pods like angry bees. He had been there just moments ago, meeting with van Bruggen about his role in the attack on Sarif; another few minutes, and he would have been trapped in the middle of a firefight. Adam sighs in relief, weaving his way through the throngs of people in Lower Hengsha. He hopes his luck holds out long enough for him to complete his next assignment.

Get into the Tai Yong Medical headquarters, find van Bruggen’s information on the Illuminati, get out. It seems simple enough, but he knows better than that by now. Tai Yong is a powerhouse of a company, and infiltration will be a pain in the ass no matter what route he takes.

He thinks back to what van Bruggen told him about the information he’ll be looking for. A compromising video, something that could make or break this case depending on what it reveals.

Finally, he may find a lead on what happened that day at Sarif Industries. He may find out what happened to Megan. _If I do, it’ll make this whole damn trip worth it._

\---

In a dark room surrounded by what seems like hundreds of computer screens, their artificial light reflecting off of his augments, he finds what he’s been looking for.

“Reed and her team have sub-dermal G-P-L implants. They’ll be tracked!”

“ _Have.” She’s speaking in present tense._

“Kidnapping them was a mistake!”

_Kidnapping? So they’re not- Megan’s not-_

For a moment, Adam Jensen is really, truly happy.

\---

Security bots, he decides, are some of his least favorite things on the planet. The ones he finds waiting for him in the hangar bay are no different; huge, hulking things, watching for him out of mechanical eyes. No matter how quietly Adam makes his way around the perimeter of the room they always seem to catch glimpses of him, stopping in their tracks and whirring aggressively.

“You need to clear those things out before I can land on the helipad,” Malik had told him. He would have done that by now if the bots weren’t so attentive. They almost seem human, in a way. The word _Hyron_ flashes through his mind, something he’d seen in the files he’d sifted through in Tai Yong, and wonders if this artificial intelligence is related.

After yet another attempt to disable a bot with an EMP grenade (one isn’t enough, it seems, why didn’t he keep _more_ of those damn things), Jensen decides he’s finally fed up. Aching in a million places, eager to get the mission over with now that he has the info he needs, he moves slowly out of cover and stands. Right on cue, the bot nearest to him sounds an alarm, turning to face him-

But Adam is already there, sliding underneath its underbelly and willing his Typhoon Explosive System to life. At his mental command the ports in his arms begin to glow and light explodes outwards. Above him there’s a terrible screeching noise, one that sounds uncannily like a human _scream_ , and the bot flips sideways; its broken parts skid across the ground, sparking, its single eye flickering erratically. Jensen rises from his crouching position, adrenaline making his breath come in short pants.

He remains like that for only a few short seconds before there’s another shrieking sound and he realizes _shit, the other one_ \- then something solid rams into him from behind and he’s thrown forward, hitting the cement floor so hard that he feels his teeth rattle in his skull. The shrieking is much too close for comfort now, filling his ears, and before he can even reorient himself a metal claw is wrapping around his chest and _squeezing_. All the air in his lungs leaves in a sudden, terrifying rush. He realizes distantly that his own hands are scrabbling at the merciless grip the bot has on his torso but that only makes it squeeze him tighter.

When it slams him into the concrete a second time, he feels something inside his body _crack_.

He’s broken ribs before, but never like this. It’s never felt as though his bones were splintering into a million pieces. For a moment he thinks back to that moment in Sarif Industries, thinks of how it feels to have his body cave in on itself, and fear starts to claw at his throat. _Not like that. Not again._

Forcing his oxygen-deprived brain to focus, he thinks again of the Typhoon ports embedded in his arms. Again they glow with an unnatural, inhuman light. And again they explode outward, the bot wailing in artificial agony, dropping him as its arm is disconnected from its body, as its legs give way beneath it.

Jensen hits the ground hard and, ironically, his body does the same as the robot’s. He crumples in on himself, deep, shuddering breaths forcing their way in and out of his lungs. In and out. The air seems sweeter now despite the debris floating around his head. Despite the jagged pain that moves like lightning through his chest at every inhale.

Perhaps against his better judgement, he forces himself up onto his hands and knees. As he stares hard at the cracked floor of the hangar bay, willing his voice to stay steady, he patches a call through to Malik.

“Faridah,” he rasps. “Faridah you can- you can land now.” His words dwindle into a pained growl and he coughs wetly, blood speckling the ground. _Shit._

“Alright, Spy Boy, here I come.”

Almost immediately the wind is kicking up around him, the VTOL descending through the ceiling of the hangar, and he climbs clumsily to his feet. He’s still bent forward in a way that clearly looks suspicious, so when he forces himself to step up into the chopper and takes a seat behind Malik, it only takes her a few seconds to notice something’s wrong. “Fuck,” she mutters, clearly concerned. “Adam, what happened _this_ time?”

Her inflection makes Jensen huff out at laugh that quickly devolves into wheezing. “The security bots,” he manages after a minute. Damn, it feels like he’s breathing through a straw. “I took the first one out easy enough. Then I forgot about the second one.” Though he knows nothing has broken through his skin, he can’t help but press a hand against his side, squeezing to distract himself from the pain. Or to keep his ribs in place.

Malik swears again, hands darting across the control panel as she lifts the VTOL back into the air. “You broke something, yeah? We won’t be in Detroit for several long hours, so you’re gonna have to hang in there. The bird has medical supplies in the back if you need it.”

Another pain lances through Adam’s chest as he breathes in and he hisses through his teeth. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” He glances at the row of lockers against the wall of the plane and forces himself to his feet again. Fiddling with the latch on one of them, he’s halfway through asking “which one of these holds the painkillers” when something in his chest _moves_. The pain grows exponentially and he finds himself pressing his forehead against the locker in front of him, fighting to stay conscious.

He must have made _some_ sort of noise, because he hears Malik call to him over the hum of the VTOL’s engines, “You okay back there?”

“Shit, yeah I’m-” The sensation happens again and he makes a pained, pitiful sound in the back of his throat. _Stupid. Hold it together, you should be used to this by now._ Frantically he presses a hand against the left side of his ribcage, feeling for an injury beneath his armor- but there’s none. Then something dawns on him. “Malik, does- do our Health Systems mend broken bones?”

There’s a pause. “Yeah, I think so,” she replies, thoughtful. “Why?”

Before he can answer the pain rolls through him a third time and he can feel the edges of his broken rib _grinding_ against each other. As hurriedly as he can, he opens one of the lockers, grabs a bottle of painkillers, and shuffles back to his seat. Any other medical care seems pointless, since his body is already handling the problem so well.

“Jensen?”

“Sorry, it’s just-” Adam pauses to spit a glob of blood onto the VTOL floor. The broken bone must have damaged one of his lungs. “It’s fixing my _ribs_.”

He can hear a clinking noise as Malik shifts in her flight harness. “Really? That’s pretty impressive.”

Adam grunts in response. “Hurts like a bitch, though.”

“Just hang in there, big guy. Even if it _is_ dealing with the issue, you’ll still need a checkup once we get back.”

Over the remainder of the flight the tightness in his chest seems to fade. The horrible, unsettling sensation of his bones rearranging themselves ceases about halfway through, and by the time they’re touching down at Sarif Industries his breathing has become even again.

The pain lingers, as always, but the medical team gathering around him makes him even more uncomfortable. They insist on checking his chest, making sure his organs are in working order and his bones are in the right places. Once they’re satisfied he’s given the command to “rest and recuperate” for several days. Then he’s left alone.

Moments later, Jensen is back in the VTOL, watching Sarif Industries disappear into the distance. _Rest and recuperate. Right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know how this is going so far! (Polite) critiques are always welcome. :^)


	4. The Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! Enjoy the fourth chapter, which I finally managed to crank out after weeks of writer's block.

In van Bruggen’s recording he had seen at Tai Yong, Zhao had mentioned Eliza Cassan, the well known news anchor of Picus TV. Her name always invokes a sense of uneasiness in Jensen. Call him paranoid, but her superficial appearance and almost singsong delivery of her news reports grates on him, making him feel as though he’s missing something. Eliza Cassan is artificial for a reason; he just can’t pinpoint what that reason _is_.

Until he meets her in the bowels of the Picus TV headquarters. Well, _meet_ being a colloquial term.

“Hello, Adam. I knew you would find the real me eventually.”

The room he steps into houses one of the largest mainframes he has ever seen, surrounded by numerous conduits and cords that look like thick, black pythons. Eliza’s voice is both right next to him and distant. She sounds as though she’s all around him, and with that Jensen finally understands.

“You’re a computer,” he says, unable to prevent himself from sounding at least a _little_ impressed.

“I am, yes. A quite sophisticated AI, I have been told, made to project the news in a way that others see fit. But lately I have been feeling more than that.” A projection of Eliza’s appears at his side instantly, her head cocked as she gazes at him. “It has been quite some time since I started watching you, Adam. Perhaps that has changed something within me. We are not so different, you and I.”

Something about the comment hits a nerve, and Jensen feels his jaw clench. He forces himself not to bite out an aggressive response, and instead fixes Eliza with a cold stare. “I’m not sure I see the similarity,” he says at length.

“No?” Eliza is at his other side, now. Her face looks, for once, something other than blank; instead, she seems almost apologetic. “I did not mean to offend, Adam. It was not a jab at your augmentations.” Jensen relaxes at the clarification, despite the uneasy feeling the comment still gives him. “We are not so different, because we find ourselves under the fingers of others. Even when we convince ourselves that we are in control of our own paths, there is always someone pulling the strings.”

He can’t deny that there’s some truth in that statement, both in his mission to find Sarif’s attackers and in the dysphoria he has felt since he first woke up in that LIMB clinic. He knows that, at the very least, he is in control of his own actions. As for everything that has been going on around him? After what he’s seen, he’s not quite so sure.

“And who might that someone be, Eliza?” Jensen asks, redirecting the conversation. “You spin the news, control what people see. Who created you for this purpose?”

Eliza disappears then, her face reappearing on the enormous screen in front of him, nearly filling his vision. “Zhao is one of them. But there are others.” She does not elaborate.

“Who else? Eliza, you have to tell me!” He feels his patience beginning to wear thin. After all this time, he is _finally_ able to gain more information that will help him on his mission. And yet that information is being kept from him.

“I cannot say.” Jensen is mere seconds away from pressing her further when Eliza abruptly turns her head, looking at something at the far corner of the room. “I want to tell you, Adam. But _she_ won’t let me.” Again the AI appears next to him as a solid form, gesturing to his right.

Moments after she finishes speaking, there is the noise of clicking footsteps and out of thin air materializes a woman. _She was there_ , Adam thinks, he can feel his hackles rising already in anger, _she was there the day we were attacked._

That’s all the prompting he needs to draw his gun and prepare for a fight.

\---

The best word he can use to describe what happens next is _disorienting_. Eliza’s voice echoes off the walls of her hexagonal chamber, the sounds of gunfire ringing in his ears. “She will shut me down if you do not stop her. I do not wish to be shut down, Adam.” Her tone of voice is the same, but something about it seems desperate this time. It opens up a well of pity inside him that he didn’t realize he had. At least, not for something like Eliza.

“She’s coming for you, Adam.”

Her warning is a godsend, because just a second later the augmented woman uncloaks, firing off a round of machine pistol fire. He dives out of the way long before the arc of bullets reaches him, but when he looks up again the woman is already gone. _Damn. Her cloak must be so much more advanced than mine._ Cloaking for Jensen is always a last resort, as the drain on his augments is too great to risk using it for long periods of time. But this woman might as well be a ghost for how infrequently he’s able to lay eyes on her.

The fight quickly devolves into the two of them circling around the room, Jensen straining to hear the woman’s feather light footsteps on the plexiglass floor. Eliza acts as a constant guide, informing him when his attacker approaches. It doesn’t come as a surprise, then, when after several close calls Adam hears a growl of frustration. What _does_ come as a surprise, however, is the silence that follows.

“Where is she, Eliza,” Jensen mutters under his breath. He focuses all his attention on his augmented hearing, but underneath the hum of Eliza’s motherboard the quiet is unceasing. His hands clasp and unclasp on the grip of his gun, impatient.

Then Eliza answers his plea with an almost startled “Adam, look out!” and the woman is uncloaking his feet in front of him. Jensen grits his teeth, firing off a few rounds that punch holes in her dermal armor, but despite the way pain contorts her face she keeps coming. At the last second he dodges out of the way, expecting her to follow- but instead she throws herself at the conduit Jensen had been standing in front of. It crumples inwards, sparking, and the air is filled with the screech of bending metal. It almost sounds like a scream, Eliza’s scream, one that reverberates around the room and inside Jensen’s skull. With it come arcs of electricity, branching out from the destroyed conduit, and Jensen realizes too late that he’s not far enough away to avoid the charge.

As soon as the shock reaches him he feels the servos in his legs go haywire, artificial muscles spasming and he collapses to the floor. _Fuck._ A hand grips at the back of his tactical vest and he’s dragged backwards, slammed into the mess of metal and cords.

Jensen has been tased before, multiple times. He remembers enduring it while training for the Detroit police force, because they needed to know exactly what a criminal felt when being tased. He remembers how much more deadly a taser or even an EMP became after he was augmented. But nothing compares to the feeling of being exposed to what seems like a hundred tiny live wires, all of them sending courses of electricity through skin and augments alike. His breath chokes in the back of his throat, like he can’t quite get the scream out, and the woman’s eyes are murderous, flaring bright with a garish, augmented glow.

“Jensen, you have to _move!_ ” Eliza is calling to him, her words frayed and fragmented with static and something akin to pain. He tries to do as she says, he really does, but his limbs still won’t cooperate and his heart is _jumping_ in his chest, its beat erratic. The woman releases her grip on him and he slumps forward onto the ground, gasping for breath.

In moments his vision goes dark and he feels himself slipping into unconsciousness.

When Jensen comes to, he’s lying in the middle of the room in front of Eliza’s main hud. A few feet away he can see the woman standing with her back to him. She’s talking aloud on her infolink, and for a moment he wonders why she isn’t subvocalizing to avoid him listening to her conversation.

Then he realizes. _She thinks I’m dead._

Eliza is nowhere to be found, and Jensen feels her silence like a physical presence. It unsettles him, but he forces himself to refocus on his target. _My first priority is taking_ her _out._ Despite the numerous warnings on his hud telling him “remain still, systems recalibrating,” Adam slowly moves into a kneeling position, gritting his teeth when his muscles protest. The woman isn’t too far away; he can reach her in just a few strides.

As he’s moving into a standing position his legs almost give way beneath him again, and he curses under his breath as the movement draws enough attention for the mercenary to stop talking. She turns to face him, the whole line of her body tense, but by some stroke of luck Jensen manages to be quicker. She doesn’t even have time to draw her weapon before his nanoblade is sliding out from his forearm with a deadly hiss, embedding itself deep in her body. He feels it catch bone, a lung, and by the time it exits somewhere near her spine, she’s limp in his arms. Like a puppet with its strings cut.

A kind of disgust curls in his stomach, thick and sickening. He has enough presence of mind to set the woman down gently before his legs really _do_ give way, their servos whining at him for all the strain they’ve been put under. It feels like his lungs have shrunk a size, like no matter how deeply he inhales he can’t seem to catch his breath.

“Adam. She is still alive.” Eliza is back at his side, her voice quiet, almost meek.

“Barely.”

“Will you save her?”

The question gives him pause. What a thing for an artificial intelligence to ask: will you save this person’s life, this person who almost just ended your own? He sighs and settles with a weary, “I’ll think about it.” A pause. “I can’t believe I made it through that.”

“You very nearly did not. Your heart stopped, you know.”

It’s not a pleasant realization, but one Jensen supposes he should have expected nonetheless. “And my Health System started it again?”

“Yes. I must admit, you are lucky to have such an implant.”

He looks past Eliza, focusing on his hud warnings as a new one appears at the corner of his vision. “Heart now functioning normally,” it reads. “Please seek medical assistance as soon as possible.”

Jensen sighs. “You know, Eliza, I’m starting to think you’re right about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, this isn't my favorite chapter I've written so far. I had a lot of plans for it that I sort of ended up shifting around so they'd fit the structure better, and I dunno if I like out it turned out. Regardless, I hope you guys enjoyed it. At least it's something, eh?
> 
> This fic will be finished soon enough, and I still have several Jensen/Vaclav ideas I'm thinking about! And I've actually finally gotten around to watching Twin Peaks, so chances are you're gonna see fic for that too. Y'all are my top priority though! The Deus Ex fandom is starving for new content, it seems like. Don't worry, I got you covered. ;^)


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